Tag Archives: misbehavior

Ontario’s universities are all publicly funded, which means that in theory they receive the same amount of money per student, plus tuition from that student. So why are only some crying poor? Laurier has announced that it is eliminating faculty and staff due to budgetary constraints. Similar reasons have been given by administrators at York and U of T to explain their ongoing labor problems.

There is some great stuff in Sarah Hampson’s latest report on the Dalhousie Dentistry School Scandal, but most people will never see it. It’s buried under a outright silly anecdote of some cloak and dagger business in a Halifax coffee shop. “The front door slaps shut with the sound of a screen door at a cottage…” isn’t quite “It was a dark and stormy night,” but it’s close.

All the talk about ‘mullioned windows” and “cottages” is foreshadowing of who the first half of this article is aimed at: Olds. Hampson is in the “cozy Victorian” cafe for a secret rendezvous with–drum roll– a crimefighter from a branch of anonymous! O-M-G! Can you believe it?!?!?! No. You can’t. The fact that you found your way here means that you are almost certainly waaaaaaaaaayyyyy too savvy to believe that some random wanker who claims to be from anonymous and arranges in person meetings with national reporters is anything but a random wanker.

Luckily, Hampson is only there to get one quote about misogyny being a problem at Dalhousie before pivoting away to an actual legitimate story. For those who don’t remember the story: It came to light that several of the male students in Dalhousie University’s school of dentistry had a facebook group which was mostly harmless, but included a few comments about hate sex with their female classmates and– and this was the one I always thought was important– using chloroform to rape girls. You can see why that’s a problem for a job that involves anesthetizing people.

Since then there has been a lot of mumbling about “restorative justice” and an open letter from the men involved describing what they learned. But the interesting bit, saved for the end, is this:

Lawyers for Ryan Millet, who blew the whistle on the Facebook group and is the only member to opt out of restorative justice and submit to the school’s disciplinary hearing, have called the disciplinary system “irrevocably broken.” This week, they issued a statement contending that the administration has made “no effort … to reach out or include him in the healing process.”

Mr. Millet feels he is being blamed in part for the “reputational harm” the university has suffered, the statement added. On Friday, the academic standards class committee found him guilty of professional misconduct related to issues of sexism, misogyny and homophobia. He will be allowed to return to clinical work on the condition that he acknowledges his guilt – something he refused to do as part of the restorative justice process – and submits to counselling and other remedial initiatives. Mr. Millet is reportedly weighing his legal options.

Haha. How do you like that. You see something fishy, report it to the proper authorities, and you end up being the only one punished. Good job Dal. Apparently more than four thousand Dal students came together to give the university president, Richard Florizine, the finger over his handling of this issue. We at J and C Read The News offer this .gif in solidarity:

And as for Ms. Hampson: nice try, but you’re no match for my meta lede-burying-fu.